New York Will Ban New Pit Bulls After Oct. 1 and Restrict Others

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No new pit bull terriers would be allowed in New York City after Oct. 1 under strict rules adopted yesterday by the city's Board of Health.

Under the health code rules, all pit bulls now in the city will have to be registered by the deadline. The registered dogs will be tattooed with a number and photographed for identification.

Although pit bulls constitute only about 2 percent of the city's dog population, they are responsible for almost 14 percent - or 422 - of the 3,057 dog bites reported in the city from November 1987 to September 1988, according to the board's statistics. The number of pit bulls in the city was estimated at 10,000.

The new rules need no further approval and become part of the health code in about 30 days, said Wilfredo Lopez, the Health Department's deputy general counsel. He described the new set of rules as ''one of the strictest in the country.''

The rules require the owner of a pit bull to be at least 18 years old, to maintain at least $100,000 of liability insurance applying to the dog and to present proof that the dog has been spayed or neutered.

The owners must also display a warning sign on the property where the pit bull is kept, keep the dog on a leash when it is outside the premises and muzzle it when there could be contact with the public.

When the registration procedures go into effect, unregistered pit bulls can be seized under the rules, which also provide for fines up to $500 a day for each violation.

The Board of Health said the rules represented an attempt to protect the public health and prevent serious bites by pit bulls. Experience has shown, the board said, that an attack by a pit bull ''can lead to the most serious human mauling and even death.''

A spokesman for the Department of Health, Barry Adkins, said the owners of the pit bulls would be required to have veterinarians tattoo the dogs under the registration procedures. He added that the details of the procedures were expected to be worked out in the next 30 days.

Animal-rights advocates were critical. Dr. Neil Wolff, a practicing veterinarian and founding director of the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights, said pit bulls were being unfairly singled out.

''We should be concerned not with the dogs as a breed, but with the people who train them to violence - they're they ones who should be tattooed,'' said Dr. Wolff, whose practice is in Greenwich, Conn.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 1 of the National edition with the headline: New York Will Ban New Pit Bulls After Oct. 1 and Restrict Others. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe